PROUD mum Alison Owens has her very own angel in daughter Lily Rose who was runner up in AOL UK's Cutest Baby of the Year competition.

Mrs Owens, of Honeysuckle Close, Calne, said her one-year-old daughter's shock of dark hair, big blue eyes and chubby cheeks won her hundreds of admirers and helped her reach the final six in the competition.

She may not have won the contest in the end, but as far as Mrs Owens and her family is concerned Lily Rose is still the cutest.

"She's an absolute angel, I couldn't have asked for a better child," the 29-year-old mum said.

"Lily Rose eats everything she's given, she sleeps all night, she has a brilliant sense of humour and she's always laughing.

"I used to go online with AOL a lot when I was pregnant to read about parenting, because when you have your first child you want to know what's going on.

"I saw the competition and thought I'd enter on the spur of the moment, I have so many pictures of Lily Rose and I couldn't resist it."

Mrs Owens married husband Matthew, 30, a sales manager at Fish Brothers Toyota in Swindon, in October, but she said her daughter, who was a bridesmaid at the ceremony in Devizes, stole the show and received most of the attention.

When the couple returned from a week-long honeymoon in Cyprus with their daughter, Mrs Owens checked her e-mails and discovered her daughter had reached the competition finals.

Lily Rose's most striking physical attribute remains her hair and according to her mum when she was born in Greenways Hospital, in Chippenham, she was known as 'the baby with hair'.

Mrs Owens said it was so long she had to trim it after just six weeks.

"When Lily Rose was born she had a full head of hair and even now people still comment about how much hair she has for a child of her age. It's really striking," she said.

Aside from the glory of being placed runner-up, Mrs Cross has also won a pair of web cams so she can show off her baby to all of her friends around the world.

Mrs Owens said she and her husband are hoping that Lily Rose will have a brother or sister in the near future.

Sheila Sang, AOL's head of lifestyle content, said: "We were inundated with entries for our cutest baby competition but it was up to our two million AOL members to choose the six finalists.

"It is clear from their votes that Lily Rose captured their hearts and we are delighted with the result."

The competition, which was run in association with Pampers, received 6,000 entries and 37,000 votes.